I run a meeting for Home Educators and today I met an amazing woman and her 6 beautiful children. I was somewhat taken back when she told me her story though.
She and her family are German and had recently been living in Germany. However, when unhappy with the schooling her children were receiving she and her husband, after a lot of thought, decided the best thing for her children was to home educate.
The only problem with that being that the German government wouldn't allow it. Apparently being a parent isn't enough of a qualification over there to teach your own. Without a teachers qualification a german family has no choice in how to educate their children.
So without even being given a chance, they were told that their children would be taken away from them, the youngest is 4 months and the eldest is 11 years. They are happy, healthy, beautiful and bright children. The thought of children taken away from such loving and devoted parents, made me well up! I could have cried!
With no other choice she had to take as much as they could fit in their car with all their 6 children and leave their own country and her husband behind. Not knowing what would happen, just knowing that all they could do was to protect their children from losing their parents. Her husband is still in Germany having to support 2 homes. One in England and the other their German home until they can sort things out over here.
This is frightening to see how much control one government can have and how unimportant they can make the parent in the lives and upbringing of their own children.
It shows how important it is to stand for our freedom to educate our children in the way we see best. Whether that is putting them in school or teaching them at home. Surely as long as they are receiving an education and the children are well loved and looked after, what else really matters? I hope people like myself, who home educate, will never find themselves in such a situation. The the freedom to choose how we educate our children will always be ours, the parents!
We have had several German families in our area over the years.
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